


The tough life might force you awakened

by WhatEvenAmI



Series: John Winchester's A+ parenting [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Abusive John Winchester, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bed-Wetting, Caring Sam Winchester, Child Neglect, Gen, Humiliation, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Kid Winchesters, Little Sam and Dean, Nightmares, Pre-Series, Public Humiliation, Shame, Weechesters, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester, Young Winchesters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 14:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3071909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatEvenAmI/pseuds/WhatEvenAmI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hunters tend to lead a very distinctive lifestyle. It takes its toll on the Winchester boys.</p><p>Unfortunately for Dean, John Winchester doesn't give a damn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The tough life might force you awakened

At six, Dean had already learned to gauge when Dad had expended all of his limited patience. Those times were frequent and tonight was one of them.

It could be difficult traveling with a two-year-old. When they were lucky, the hum of the engine lulled Sammy to sleep for the duration of the cross-country drives. Today they hadn't been lucky. Sammy had been wailing on and off all day. He wouldn't tell them what was wrong, or didn't know how to explain what was setting him off.

Dean had sat with him in the backseat poking Cheerios into his mouth in an attempt to keep him quiet. He'd had varying results. The boys and the backseat were sticky with globs of Cheerio spit. Dean wouldn't mind so much if not for the tension in Dad's jaw, the way he was beginning to glare at the road.

For the past half hour or so of the trip Dean had kept up a constant stream of chatter that at least kept Sammy's attention focused on him. It wasn't good, though. Dad was grinding his teeth. He preferred quiet on long car rides. Luckily, they made it to the motel without incident, but Dean wasn't surprised when his father dumped the suitcases on the floor and told them that he was going to get started on the case right away. 

By now Dean didn't bother asking when Dad was going to get back. He'd return when he returned, maybe smelling like alcohol and maybe not. And he didn't like when Dean asked questions.

Dean turned on the TV for himself and Sammy squatted on the floor, grasping a pen he'd found and scribbling clumsily at the base of the wall. Dean didn't bother to stop him. He didn't really think anyone would notice the pen marks and it kept Sammy busy for him. He'd found that his brother put up a fight if you tried to get him to go to bed, but left to his own devices, he'd get sleepy and start to doze where he sat. Then Dean could guide him to the bed without much of a fuss and he'd be out like a light. 

Sure enough, by eleven Sammy was slumped over with his cheek pressed against the wall, his hands smudged with ink spots. Dean muted the TV and put an arm around the drowsy toddler, leading him to the nearer of the two beds and tucking him in. 

"Good night, Sammy," he murmured and got a sleepy noise in return that might have been a "Night-night". He pressed a quick kiss to his brother's head, then went to brush his teeth and take off his clothes. He climbed into the other side of the bed, switching off the bedside lamp but leaving the muted TV glowing. He and Sammy preferred it that way. It was like having a night-light.

Dean lay back against the pillows, knowing he'd have to sleep but wishing that he didn't.

When the hunting first started, Dean had been scared that Dad would get killed and never come back, and then what would happen to them? He always did come back, though. Sometimes it was a day and sometimes it was a week and sometimes it was so long the time started to run all together, and then Dean would feel really afraid. But every time Dad would come tromping back in the door, hugging his boys and brushing off any questions that didn't have to do with how to be a hunter.

After a while, Dean stopped getting so afraid. John was proud of him for being brave. Well, he hadn't  _said_ proud, exactly, but he'd called Dean his strong brave boy. Then _Dean_ had felt proud.

He could be brave and strong. He could.

Except for at night. That's when he slipped. But Dad was away and Sammy was little, so they didn't have to know about the nightmares. He could keep being brave for them both. But still, even getting scared by the nightmares felt shameful enough. Enough  _without_ the other thing: that lately when he'd had nightmares he'd wake up and find out he'd wet the bed. The fear brought the shame, but how he felt when he woke up in a wet bed went far beyond just shame. There wasn't even a word for it, at least not that he knew of.

And Dad  _really_ didn't like it.

But Dad wasn't here, and probably wouldn't be back tonight. So for at least this one night, he could sleep in relative peace. 

But that didn't make him feel any better when he jerked out of a shadowy world of teeth ripping at bloody skin to feel cold wetness beneath him. Still shaky, he squeezed his eyes shut and took a couple of breaths.

He sat up gingerly and winced, then lifted the covers. The wet patch hadn't reached Sammy, who still breathed evenly in deep sleep on the other side of the bed. 

Dean moved quickly just in case John  _was_ actually on his way back. He slid out of bed and jerked up the covers to hide the wet spot. His underpants and the hem of his t-shirt were soaked, so he stripped them off and crumpled them in the bottom of the laundry bag. Then he soothed away his nerves and leftover fear under a hot shower. He made himself think about the teeth and the blood and even the pain, what it would feel like. If he could make himself not be so afraid of it then maybe there would be less nightmares and this would stop.

It wasn't really working so far, but maybe it would take time and growing up. That's all it had taken when he used to think that Dad might leave forever.

Clad in fresh underpants and a t-shirt, Dean crawled into the dry side of the bed, huddled up with his brother. Sammy moaned and stirred but then breathed evenly once Dean stopped moving. Dean hugged his small sleeping form tight. Sometimes it seemed that the world was just too full of things to be scared of. Sammy wasn't scared, at least not much, probably because he was too little yet to know that he should be.

Dean knew that he was there to help Dad and part of that meant protecting Sammy so that Sammy wouldn't have anything to be scared of.

Dean could do that. Sammy trusted Dean's care without question, even more than Dad's. That made Dean feel at least a little better, and less weak.

* * *

 

"God _dammit_ , Dean!" Dad's snarl jerked Dean into consciousness.

He'd been caught up in a vivid dream, vampire teeth scratching at his skin, blood spurting from his throat. The poison filtered through him. He could feel himself turning even as he sprayed out blood. He would begin to drink it, he knew he wouldn't be able to stop, and once that ran out he would look to feed. There would be others. It would be his own teeth. He would rip and bite and watch as wild scared eyes-

And then he was awake in the cheap hotel room, curled around a confused and groggy Sammy, in cold and soaking pants and with his angry father overhead. That wasn't any better, and he must have gotten Sammy wet. His face flared burning hot. He looked down at his knees and waited. He didn't have to wait long.

Dad's hand closed roughly around his arm, jerking him out of the bed. He didn't say anything most of the time; he no longer had to. Everything John  _had_ ever said regarding the matter was etched deeply into Dean's mind.  _Pathetic. What's the matter with you? Waste of my damn time._

However, Dean began to register the sharp smell of hard alcohol and that meant tonight there would be more than words. There would be some kind of punishment. Sammy was wide awake now, reaching for Dean with one arm, the other still curled around the stuffed frog that Dean had given him for his fourth birthday.

Dad shook Dean roughly as he dragged him (exactly how drunk was he? And was he getting drunker than usual lately?) and Sammy yelled his name. 

"Be quiet, Sammy," John snapped over his shoulder, but Sammy ignored him and scrambled to the edge of the bed, reaching and calling for Dean. That's when Dean realized he'd done his job too well. He'd protected and sheltered Sammy so completely that Sammy wasn't at all scared when he should have been. That was a problem because it might get him killed someday.

When he wasn't burning with embarrassment and shame and anxiety all the way through, when he wasn't trying to shut down all feeling completely, he was going to have to think of a way to fix it. Not so that it would hurt Sammy, but sooner or later he would have to learn when to keep quiet, when to fight, when to spot problems before they actually happened. Anyone had to learn those things, but it was especially important for hunters. 

"It's okay, Sammy," he tried for now, but Sammy climbed down from the bed and ran after them. Dean could see now that John was taking him to the door, and had some idea of how this punishment was going to go. The weight of dread gathered in his stomach, but he could take this, he told himself, he would take this. He wouldn't act weak. 

Only Sammy was trying to grab onto Dean's hand and pull him back.

Normally Dad would never be rough with Sammy, but Dean thought he might be too drunk for any sort of self-restraint. Dean pushed Sammy off him before John could do it. "Sammy, go and get in the shower. Don't worry about me, just go shower."

Sammy listened to Dean better than he did to Dad. He hesitated, staring up at them in wide-eyed worry, but when Dean repeated, "Get in the shower, Sammy!" he went. 

Dad knelt and grabbed the front of Dean's shirt, pulling him in to meet his sharp boozy breath. Dean made himself turn his face up from the floor, knowing that John would be even madder if Dean didn't look him in the eyes. 

"You can camp out there tonight, buddy," John breathed, "Maybe you'll shape up when you gotta go out and face the world. Is this how you want them to see you, buddy? Is it?" He was shaking Dean hard enough that Dean was actually surprised and getting a little scared. Then he was being propelled out of the room with what was probably more force than Dad intended, staggering (and nearly falling) into the brightly-lit hallway. The door slammed behind him, locking him out.

The part of Dean that he hated (a small part, but there nonetheless) wanted to slide down the wall, curl up, and hide his face in his knees. He was fully conscious of how pathetic that would be and what Dad would say if he found Dean like that the next morning. No, he'd told himself he could take this, and he would. He'd stand ramrod-straight and stare at the wall and refuse to feel anything at all. And then it would be over, just like all bad things were eventually. Soon enough they'd be driving away and he could leave this all behind them.

At least he could tell himself that while the hallway was empty. It wasn't so easy when he first heard people coming. He'd hoped that, since it was late, no one would be out to see him. And for half an hour or so no one was. It was just him and his thoughts. He kept his mind occupied by thinking over the show they'd watched on television before they'd gone to bed. Remembering a funny line, he even let out a little huff of laughter. Then he heard a young woman's shrill giggle from down the hall. His heart sank, and he gritted his teeth. 

He tried to will them away, thinking that maybe whoever it was wouldn't come this way. But there were voices now, growing louder and clearer. At the end of the hall a teenage couple appeared, a tall boy and a girl with purple hair. They were talking loudly and emphatically, their steps a little sluggish and unsure. Dean could tell that they'd been drinking. When they spotted him, they openly stared. Dean resolutely looked at the wall, well aware of how small and pathetic he must have appeared, banished and alone in his wet pants.  _Don't think about it, don't think about it._

But there was no bracing himself for the look on their faces when they drew level with him, the crease in their brows and the tightening in their eyes. His stomach twisted into a knot and he pressed his lips tightly together. They probably couldn't tell how his face burned, but it felt like they could. They hesitated for a second, but to Dean's relief, the boy grabbed the girl's hand and tugged her onward. She glanced back at him one last time but allowed herself to be led away.

It took Dean a while to push down the lingering humiliation and shame. It made him want to bang on the door and beg for entry, but he wouldn't do that. He wouldn't. He knew well enough the response he'd get.

Still, he almost tried when it occurred to him that Sammy might be scared, alone with their drunk and angry father. It took a lot to keep him standing still. Sammy would be okay; he'd see him in the morning. All he had to do was wait till then. Still, he clenched his fists to stop himself from turning and rattling the door handle.

Not too long after that, a tall man in a suit appeared at the end of the hall. 

He made a lot less noise than the young couple had, so Dean was taken by surprise. So was the man. He did a double-take, then headed directly for Dean. 

"Young man?"

Dean fixed his gaze determinedly on the wall again.

"Young man, how old are you?"

 _Eight_ , Dean almost said. He didn't, though. He remembered everything Dad had taught him. He wasn't to trust anyone, and he wasn't to give out too much information when it could be avoided. Those were two important rules.

"You have a name?" The man's voice was gentle now; he was kneeling in front of Dean. He had a round face and glasses. It was his tone that got to Dean, his expression: the man looked so openly caring and concerned. He sounded _kind_ , damn him. Dean had to break his gaze and look at the ground. He felt kind of like something had squeezed all the air out of his chest, like the vengeful spirit had done to that man in Spokane. 

"Young man, can you tell me why you're out here on your own tonight?" And despite his efforts, (and couldn't the man see that for himself, he knew the answer, didn't he, really) Dean found himself shaking his head, he was shaking his head and-

And he was rescued by the sound of the door opening behind him. Without having to be asked, Dean escaped into the room. He heard the man start to ask another question, but Dad was talking over him. Then the door was firmly shut in the man's face.

Dean paused to see if Dad had anything else to say to him, but was allowed to retreat to the bathroom without a word. Gratefully, Dean peeled off his wet, sticking clothes. Patches of his skin had grown pink and irritated, but he ignored that.

Behind the locked door, enveloped in the warmth of the shower, he finally gave in to the feeling the man had invoked. He sat on the floor of the tub for a long time, hugging his legs to his chest and shaking with silent sobs.

* * *

Sam shook Dean awake without a word. Immediately he knew he must have been gasping in his sleep; he'd been sobbing in the dream, and now, awake, the shortness of breath lingered in his chest.

By now, alongside his father, Dean had faced down countless monsters and demons and a plethora of malevolent spirits. He'd seen gory injuries, gallons of blood, and multitudes of mangled, decaying corpses. He'd snuck into cemeteries to dig up graves, he'd received a wide variety of bites and claw marks, he'd fired weapons that most kids his age wouldn't be allowed to touch, and he'd eaten more fifty-cent burritos than he cared to remember. None of it fazed him.

Or at least it didn't faze him during his waking hours. It seemed that every new hunt added to his repertoire of things that his mind could embellish while he slept.

But tonight it had been an old one. A remnant of his childhood, the dream of buildings going up in flames with people he knew trapped inside. It wasn't like the other nightmares. Those left him shaky and afraid and helpless because he wanted to fight but there was nothing to fight. Once you were awake, you couldn't fight a dream.

But the ones about the fire had left him feeling the way he'd felt that night, made him four years old again, hollow and hopeless without the capacity to process such feelings. Everything that had made up his world, gone. His life as he knew it, over, just like that.

Only that night he'd held onto Dad and Sammy. But now he was twelve (no, thirteen, he kept forgetting he'd had his birthday) so it would be pretty damn embarrassing if he tried to snuggle his brother like a stuffed animal (he was reminded once again of that frog he'd given Sam, dragged around for years. They'd lost it somewhere in Roswell, and Sammy had been devastated) every time something freaked him out.

And he definitely wasn't gonna try and cuddle up to Dad.

At least he wasn't wet, not tonight. It didn't happen as often anymore, but even once was one time too many. Especially at his age. And, embarrassment aside, it would have meant tiptoeing around Dad's snoring form in an attempt to hide the evidence. Thanks to Sam waking Dean from his nightmares before Dean could wake their father, Dad didn't know that the bedwetting had continued into his (now) teenage years.

But Dean  _hated_ that Sam had to help him with this in the first place. Hated the thought of Sam seeing him in that light. He was supposed to be strong for his little brother, prepared for anything at all times. Not that Sam would ever bring it up. It was each of the brothers' personal responsibility to mildly emotionally torment the other on a daily basis, but Sammy knew where to draw the line. He'd seen Dean beaten, humiliated, berated down to nothing for years and years over this. He didn't need to be told that it wasn't funny in the slightest.

Still, even if Sam said nothing of the sort, when Dean woke in a soaked puddle next to his younger brother, he felt like a failure on about a thousand levels.

He knew he wasn't going back to sleep tonight. He couldn't shake that lost, hollow feeling. He knew what it really was. That feeling had come from watching the fire burn down to ash, drifting away from what home had always been, clinging to his family and knowing it was short one member. More than anything, even after all these years, that feeling was the absence of-

"Dean." Sam whispered.

"What?" 

There was a stretch of silence, then suddenly all sixty-three pounds of Sammy were on Dean's side of the bed, clinging like a monkey.

"Sammy," Dean said, a little embarrassed. "I'm okay. Really. You can get off me."

Sam's grip loosened a little. He looked uncertainly toward Dean, their faces inches apart.

"I don't...always sleep so great either," he whispered, an anxious crease in his forehead. "Can I..."

Dean smiled and turned onto his side, the better to hug his brother. Sammy's skinny arms latched tight around Dean's ribs, head tucked beneath his chin. And if Dean was holding onto Sam's small body a little desperately, waiting for that scared sort of hollowness to go away, well, Sam didn't have to know that.

* * *

Dean didn't want to enroll in school.

He'd rather be working the case with Dad, but Dad had come back from the police station and informed him that it looked like this one was gonna take a while. He told Dean that they'd need to stick around for a bit. As was always the case, two kids wandering around town for weeks on end would raise some questions, get people sniffing around. So unless the boys felt like holing up in a motel room for a month straight, they'd have to go to school.

Dean knew the drill. He was mostly okay with it. He wasn't okay with school.

Other fifteen-year-olds, they were so... _juvenile_ , so damn  _young_. He'd even say that in most ways Sam was more mature than any of them. They made the biggest deal of every tiny detail of their lives. They complained about the most ridiculous things. They played the game of social hierarchy, only they took it so damn  _seriously_ , as if anything anyone did in high school actually mattered.

And if he had to listen to one more dumbass try to sound cool by telling him they'd been "so fucking wasted" he'd shoot someone in the face. 

(A few years back Sam had dared him to drink from the bottle Dad kept stashed in his trunk. It burned his throat, but he'd forced himself to keep a straight face and take another gulp. Sammy had had a couple sips too, and a minute later it came right back up. That was the end of that, but later, after Sam had dozed off, Dean had swallowed down more. He'd fallen, heavy-headed, into bed and slept like the dead. The peaceful kind of dead, not the vengeful spirits who came back to choke people. He'd found that the nightmares didn't bother him after enough from the bottle, that it took him where the worries couldn't follow. All his life he'd wondered why Dad kept drinking the stuff that made him act stupid and reckless, that put him so far off his game. It was against everything he'd ever taught his boys.

But if the bottles were the secret to resting easy, then Dean understood completely.)

The boys would start school in a couple days. It was a foregone conclusion that Dean would immediately devote his attention to hooking up, probably the only worthwhile thing to do in high school. Sam, nerd that he could be, would probably study and complete homework assignments, maybe join a club or a team. And it wasn't that Dean wasn't happy for him. At least someone would be enjoying this experience. Dean just didn't see the point of getting himself too deeply involved. It would only make the goodbye suck.

Sam sat on the edge of the bed, working on the papers they'd present to the school administration. They were going to be Sam and Dean Keller from Tampa this time. Tampa, because they'd been there recently enough to remember a little about the place, but not so recently that anyone would remember the story in the news about all those people who'd had their hearts eaten out. Tampa was also pretty far from here, so it wouldn't have been big news.

Dean was putting together the things they'd need to bring: notebooks, lunch money, clothes that would conceal a few basic hunting weapons. You weren't supposed to have them in school, but the Winchester boys never went anywhere unprepared. They knew better than that.

Dad was shoving hunting essentials from his trunk into a knapsack. Dean hadn't been surprised to see a bottle vanish into the front pocket. Their father had pretty much been sipping off it full-time recently, but Dean didn't let himself worry too much. By this time, he was old enough to look after himself and Sam on his own. Both boys knew how to maintain their weapons, operate the car, and keep track of which identity they'd taken on in each town. If it came to it, they could manage by themselves.

"What the hell's this?"

Dean and Sam both looked around and Dean's stomach gave an unpleasant twist. He didn't know why Dad had been poking through the laundry bag. He _did_ know that in the early hours of the morning, while Dad was ostensibly gathering information from the locals (but probably scoping out the bars more than anything) Sam had helped Dean to strip the bed and replace the sheets. Dean had done what had worked for most of his life: folded their wet clothing and buried it in the bottom of the laundry bag, wrapped in a sweatshirt.

Now Dad was holding up Dean's still-damp sweatpants with raised eyebrows and an incredulous look.

Sam sent a commiserating glance toward Dean, then bit his lip and looked away.

Dean, though, was looking Dad in the eye, waiting. Wasn't anything else he could do, really. Wait for his father's sentence.

"Pathetic, Dean. That's just pathetic."

Then Dad was slinging his knapsack over his shoulder and slamming his way out the door.

Sam knew better than to say a word to Dean. He just switched on the TV. But he let Dean commandeer the remote without a word of protest, and when they'd settled in to watch, he rested his head on his brother's shoulder. Dean didn't shake him off and try to turn it into a shoving game, as he usually would have done. He knew what Sam was trying to express, and though he wasn't entirely comfortable with it, for once he decided not to push away the one person who would always stick by him.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The work and chapter titles are from Toba Beta's "My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut". The full quote:
> 
> "A nightmare might force you awakened.  
> The tough life might force you awakened."


End file.
